People of all stripes have been on media of all types this week marking the following Covid-19 milestone:
As of Tuesday evening, there are more than 1,012,000 people in the United States who have or have had the virus, according to a tally from health officials by Johns Hopkins University. At least 58,356 people have died.
A total of 58,220 Americans died during the war in Vietnam, where fighting lasted more than 10 years.
(CNN, April 28, 2020)
Except that comparing the number of people dying from Covid-19 with the number who died in Vietnam is as ungracious as it is specious. Yet nobody seems even aware of the wanton disrespect this shows those soldiers who died over there purportedly defending us over here.
But this is not the time to revisit the cardinal leadership sins that misled them to their deaths. Instead, I’ll stress the one unassailable fact I’ve been preaching like John the Baptist since the outbreak of Covid-19:
We. Are. Not. At. War!
And I declare this, despite
- national leaders boasting militaristic about their futile efforts to stop the spread;
- doctors, nurses, and others being hailed as frontline soldiers in a “war against an invisible enemy”; and
- citizens blithely subjugating themselves to de-facto martial law to play along with this unconscionable wargaming of a health pandemic.
In fact, to appreciate the cognitive fiction afoot, just recall that we saw (and, more to the point, had) no need to assume such war footings to fight (more apples-to-apples) pandemics like the Asian Flu, HIV, Swine Flu, or Ebola.
What’s more, imagine the funereal state of public consciousness if the media were tolling bells for every person who died during those pandemics; you know, the way they are doing now – complete with gratuitous chyrons and graphics.
Not to mention their coverage of daily press conferences featuring everyone from the president to local mayors. These politicians do their best to look as commanding and reassuring as that famous bear of a general, Norman Schwarzkopf. Unfortunately, they invariably look as hapless and clueless as that fickle weather vane, the groundhog.
News networks would have you believe they’re providing a public service. But, like their vulture coverage of natural disasters, they’re just catering to our basic instinct to be as fascinated by morbidity as we are titillated by sexuality. Coverage of both generate ratings, and that’s the bottom line.
And don’t get me started on the anchors – who can barely read their teleprompters in the best of times – now trying to interview scientists on the epidemiological intricacies of vaccine development.
But, unlike Brother John, I’m tired of preaching. Therefore, besides referring you to related commentaries below, I shall suffice to note that some of my prophecies are already being fulfilled.
For example, I warned that leaders were “setting an untenable precedent” with their lockdown orders. Sure enough:
As antsy Americans show growing signs of ‘quarantine fatigue’ and officials face pressure to ease coronavirus restrictions, factories, malls and state governments in many parts of the country are taking steps toward reopening.
But Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a second wave of infections is ‘inevitable’ in the United States.
(The Washington Post, April 29, 2020)
This raises the “obvious question” I posed in “Fighting This Coronavirus Is Setting an Untenable Precedent” on March 31, namely “What happens next time?” Frankly, it is self-evident that it’s only a matter of time before political leaders worldwide begin echoing this realization:
‘We have to live with the virus,’ says France’s PM detailing plan to ease lockdown.
(France24, April 28, 2020)
Nothing telegraphs this quite like governors taking steps to reopen their states. In doing so, they are defying, if not making a mockery of, White House guidelines, which none of them have met.
A political divide over how to reopen a country and economy shuttered by the coronavirus epidemic is deepening the political divide as Republican governors in the South begin reopening businesses in their states. …
It’s not just Republican governors who are seeking to open their states, and it’s also not just Southern states. In Montana, Gov. Steve Bullock (D) announced Wednesday his state will begin phasing in business operations.
(The Hill, April 22, 2020)
But just think of the millions of jobs, billions of troubled minds, and trillions of dollars that could have been spared if world leaders had realized from the outset the categorical imperative of living with the virus. History will judge harshly leaders who decided to treat Covid-19 by ordering a retreat – to put lockdowns in the war-like parlance they’ve all adopted.
They will blame the virus of course. But their decisions to impose lockdowns will be recorded as the costliest socio-economic blunders in the history of mankind.
Finally, the war in Vietnam was an abject, unmitigated failure – as anyone who had anything to do with it has conceded. Therefore, if you’re one of the imaginary generals waging this imaginary war against this invisible enemy, the last thing you’d want to do is to ape the generals from that war. After all, they have gone down in infamy for continually feeding the American people rosy scenarios about their war efforts, despite knowing full well they were stuck in an unwinnable quagmire.
Yet, evidently, Jared Kushner has no such compunction. Only that explains the tone-deaf, delusional, and self-aggrandizing scenario he fed the American people yesterday:
The White House senior adviser and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law said the goal was to have much of the US ‘back to normal’ by June and for the nation to be ‘really rocking again’ by July.
He described the country as being on the other side of the medical aspect of this, despite cases mounting in rural states. ‘The federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story,’ Kushner said on Fox & Friends.
(Business Insider, April 29, 2020)
It doesn’t quite fit to say the fruit didn’t fall far from the poisonous tree. But you get the point.
[Note: Like any preacher worth his salt, my related commentaries include one at March 20 below that lays out my “four-point plan” for salvation from Covid-19 … without having to suffer the purgatory of cyclical lockdowns.]
Related commentaries:
untenable precedent…
plan to fight COVID-19…
coronavirus thread…
four-point plan…